A lovesick hairdresser must serve a minimum of nearly eight years for crashing his car into his ex-partner’s Caversham home as part of an elaborate suicide bid.

Jealous Edmund Bruton, 42, sped to 80mph in his Peugeot and careered into the front room of Tara Lavery’s property because he thought she was seeing another man.

Bruton, who attempted to poison himself before the crash, also claimed he had tried to use a garden fork in order to inflict a fatal injury on himself, although such a piece of equipment was never recovered.

Four children, who were playing computer games in the front room, escaped serious injury.

Bruton survived the February 26 crash, spending 14 days in hospital – six of them in a coma with renal failure – and was found guilty by a jury at Inner London Crown Court in Southwark on September 23 of damaging property with intent to endanger life, and dangerous driving, but not guilty of attempted murder and damaging property while being reckless as to whether life was endangered.

Bruton was sentenced yesterday by Judge Lindsay Burn to an indeterminate prison sentence with a minimum tariff of seven-and-a-half years, less the 227 days he has spent on remand, for the first offence and six months’ jail, to run concurrently, for the second.

Mr Burn said: “This is, in any view, a most disturbing and worrying case.

“Your response [to the end of the relationship] was to set about, in a pre-determined and meticulous way, to not only plan your own death but to endanger the life of your previous partner and [the] young children, not just a few hours before but over days.

“Your purpose, I’m satisfied, was to end your own life but at the same time to do the maximum amount of harm you could to her and quite possibly one or more of [the] young children.

“I’m satisfied that it was only by purest chance that no more damage or injury was done than was done.

“In fact, the children did suffer injuries. One of them received a scar which is going to haunt that child for the rest of its life.

“The injuries could have been very much worse. They could have even been fatal.”

The court previously heard Bruton met Ms Lavery through an internet dating site in January 2010, but their relationship became strained in early 2011 and the pair broke up.

He used to work in IT for healthcare firm GlaxoSmithKline but was made redundant before opening his own hair and beauty salon in Richmond, South West London, that ran into financial difficulties, compounding his worries about his mother’s health problems.

Checked-shirted Bruton, of Wembley, North West London, who sacked his legal team on the eve of the sentencing hearing and decided to represent himself, left the dock before Mr Burn could finish passing sentence.